Vegetarianism and

NOTHING WILL BENEFIT HUMAN HEALTH AND INCREASE CHANCES FOR SURVIVAL OF LIFE ON EARTH AS MUCH AS THE EVOLUTION TO A VEGETARIAN DIET.
Albert Einstein

I worry that my enthusiasm for vegetarianism is perceived as judgmental. I think that any time someone says that something they do is RIGHT, it is perceived as though anything anyone else does to the contrary is WRONG. Seriously, almost everyone in my life eats meat and pretty much all of you I love and admire for various reasons. I never meant to imply that any of you are not good, moral people.

I do believe that veganism is the right thing to do. That said, I still eat eggs and dairy sometimes. It is a source of spiritual unrest for me and I hope that someday soon I will make the full switch.

There is a documentary called “Earthlings” that, even as a devout vegetarian, I have yet to watch. It’s called the “vegan-maker” and that’s exactly why I don’t want to watch it. I enjoy eating eggs. I enjoy community and family that surround meals. I enjoy normalcy and not having to defend my choices because they become painfully obvious about 3 times a day. I know that people think vegetarians and vegans are aggressive, but perhaps until you give up animal products (I have been pescatarian since about 2004, vegetarian since 2008, and I have been vegan every Lent since 2008) you understand little of what it takes. I get criticized a lot. I get defensive diatribes frequently, despite the fact that “in real life,” I almost never bring up my vegetarianism. Almost all of the time that I go into why I don’t eat meat is when I am being defensive because someone is trying to tell me how stupid I am or how I am fighting genetics or classist or something. Yes, cravings. I craved meat for a while and every so often something will make me think “wouldn’t that be nice?” When my dad makes his signature spaghetti sauce for our family gathering with out-of-state relatives who I see every few years, wouldn’t it be nice if I could enjoy that Eucharist-like meal with them? Wouldn’t it?

But as anyone who is remotely religious knows, once you know something in the core of your being, it stays there. I know Jesus existed and I know that his life changed the world. His unprecedented connection with God and the universe is unparalleled and beautiful in a way that still has ripple effects of spirit on my life today. His acts of radical inclusivity changed the paradigm of “love” and challenged each of us to widen our circles of compassion and consider our lives in a grander scheme, to understand how our own ripples effect the future in very real ways.

Proactive justice is real. I know so many people who are proactively orienting their lives on a trajectory of justice.

I know so many people who do few things in their day-to-day lives that constitute any kind of moral decision-making.

Both of these “categories” contain their passive elements. PASSIVE INJUSTICE is real, too. In the ways we forget to make room for our LGTBQ friends, for our friends of color, for our friends of differing abilities, for our friends of different genders and languages and cultures and ages and etc etc etc etc etc.

I truly believe that most of us commit most of the injustices of our lives in the ways that we spend our money. The classist, racist, sexist, genderist, homophobic, hateful people we give our money to by virtue of our spending habits, the industries we support and the things those industries do to strip us of our dignity and moral compass.

Follow the money.

Please please please, if you have any agency in the ways you spend money… I know not all of us have the luxury of choice. But if you DO. If you have enough money to buy coffee or eat out or buy clothing out of anything but need or eat out of anything but hunger….

Consider what your money supports.

If you eat animals, it likely supports inhumane treatment, genetic interference with species, torture, mistreatment of workers, environmental degradation, carbon emissions, and the decline of healthful bodies. If you have the ability to consider your spending habits and make choices about when and where from you buy things in a way that can improve the nature of your contribution, I pray that you will. I pray that I will.

I want my life to better this world, not hurt it.

Here ends my blasphemy of works over faith.